{"id":165948,"date":"2025-09-24T11:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/165948\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T11:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:12:09","slug":"the-five-stages-of-realizing-summer-legs-are-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/165948\/","title":{"rendered":"The Five Stages of Realizing Summer Legs Are Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

They\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n

Here begins the emotional journey every rider must face: the five stages of realising your glorious, sun-fuelled summer legs have packed up, moved out, and left you with early-autumn mediocrity.<\/p>\n

Stage one: Denial<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the legs. It\u2019s the wind. Or your tyre pressure.<\/a> Or the weird hummus you had yesterday.
You tell yourself it\u2019s just a one-off bad day.<\/p>\n

You glance at your average speed and laugh nervously.
You convince yourself you\u2019re \u201csaving energy for later\u201d as you get dropped by the group\u2019s least-threatening member \u2014 the one who usually brings banana bread.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re fine. Everything\u2019s fine.
It\u2019s not your legs. They just need five more minutes.<\/p>\n

They will not bounce back.<\/p>\n

\"how-to-convince-yourself-that-base-training-is-fun-again\"\/<\/a> <\/p>\n


\n How to Convince Yourself That Base Training Is Fun (Again)
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Stage two: Anger<\/p>\n

You hit the first hill and your quads respond like overcooked spaghetti.
You\u2019re seated. Then you\u2019re standing. Then you\u2019re spiralling.<\/p>\n

Why am I like this?
Where did it all go? I was flying last month! I was KOM-ing things!<\/p>\n

You start cursing your summer self for being so smug. You blame the weather, your job, your friends, sleep, pollen levels, Mercury in retrograde, and whoever invented September. You chew a gel aggressively and get zero results.<\/p>\n

Stage three: Bargaining<\/p>\n

You tell yourself: one good week of training and it\u2019ll all come back.
Maybe a few intervals. A couple of hill reps. A juice cleanse. A new recovery supplement.
Maybe new socks? New socks might fix this.<\/p>\n

You Google \u201chow long does it take to regain fitness\u201d while eating half a packet of ginger biscuits in your kit.<\/p>\n

You promise to take your training seriously this time.
You download five new apps. You write a plan.
You ride once and immediately need a nap.<\/p>\n

Stage four: Despair<\/p>\n

This is who you are now.<\/p>\n

You are a middle-of-the-pack, barely-hitting-zone-three, bottom-of-the-leaderboard husk of the rider you were in July. Your tan lines are fading. Your bibs feel a little tighter. Your legs are silent, your lungs are loud, and your bike is judging you.<\/p>\n

You get passed on a climb by someone smiling. Smiling. You go home. You lie on the floor. You stare at the ceiling and wonder if Zwift<\/a> is the answer. Or maybe badminton.<\/p>\n

Stage five: Acceptance<\/p>\n

Eventually, you accept it.<\/p>\n

The summer legs were beautiful. Glorious. But temporary. They were born of long days, short sleeves, iced coffee and a reckless disregard for structured training. They gave you speed and joy and unjustified confidence.<\/p>\n

But now it\u2019s September. Now it\u2019s layers and drizzle and slow cadence soul work. Now it\u2019s base miles. It\u2019s rebuilding. It\u2019s humbling.<\/p>\n

You nod. You zip up your jacket. You pack an extra snack. And you ride. Slower, maybe. But still riding.<\/p>\n

Because the legs will come back.
Just in time for next summer. Or at least June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re gone. Here begins the emotional journey every rider must face: the five stages of realising your glorious,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-165948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}